Waze takes more risks, that's for sure. It's still the best one if you know the area you're driving and are willing to ignore the maps.

I still use Google Maps when I'm unfamiliar with the drive for the reasons you mention (ie, it needlessly took me down a busy grid-locked road once).

But otherwise nothing beats Waze for the additional features like construction and police reporting plus it does a good job of finding fast routes far more often than not.